| isolation and characterization of deoxyribonucleic acid from tissue of the woolly mammoth, mammuthus primigenius. | dna was isolated from tissue samples of several mammoth specimens, radiocarbon dated between 10,000 and 53,000 years old. the dna was purified by chromatography on hydroxyapatite at 60 degrees c and was characterized as a heterogeneous population of fragments ranging in size from 3000 to 200 base pairs. thermal denaturation analysis demonstrated that approximately 25% of the dna had a base composition similar to asian elephant dna calculated as 36% g + c. preliminary analysis by nucleic acid hyb ... | 1985 | 4042623 |
| [microstructure of fossil mammalian bones from the rixdorfer horizon of weichsel-kaltzeit at niederlehme near königs wusterhausen (brandengurg)]. | the structure is reported of bones of glacial-period mammals, which were found in 1973 to 1989 in gravel-sandy soil of the fossiliferous layer "rixdorfer horizont" at niederlehme near königs wusterhausen. the findings, probably, date from one of the interstages of the glacial period "weichsel-kaltzeit" before the stage "brandenburger stadium". their embedding took place more than 20,000 years ago. changes of the deposit of bones and teeth from older sediments are not to exclude in the finding pl ... | 1993 | 8489038 |
| phylogenetic resolution within the elephantidae using fossil dna sequence from the american mastodon (mammut americanum) as an outgroup. | dna was extracted from the extinct american mastodon, the extinct woolly mammoth, and the modern asian and african elephants to test the traditional morphologically based phylogeny within elephantidae. phylogenetic analyses of the aligned sequences of the mitochondrial gene cytochrome b support a monophyletic asian elephant-woolly mammoth clade when the american mastodon is used as an outgroup. previous molecular studies were unable to resolve the relationships of the woolly mammoth, asian eleph ... | 1996 | 8577738 |
| phylogenetic position of mammoth and steller's sea cow within tethytheria demonstrated by mitochondrial dna sequences. | here we report dna sequences from mitochondrial cytochrome b gene segments (1,005 base pairs per species) for the extinct woolly mammoth (mammuthus primigenius) and steller's sea cow (hydrodamalis gigas) and the extant asian elephant (elephas maximus), the western indian manatee (trichechus manatus), and the hyrax (procavia capensis). these molecular data have allowed us to construct the phylogeny for the tethytheria. our molecular data resolve the trichotomy between the two species of living el ... | 1997 | 9089080 |
| molecular phylogenetic inference of the woolly mammoth mammuthus primigenius, based on complete sequences of mitochondrial cytochrome b and 12s ribosomal rna genes. | complete sequences of cytochrome b (1,137 bases) and 12s ribosomal rna (961 bases) genes in mitochondrial dna were successfully determined from the woolly mammoth (mammuthus primigenius), african elephant (loxodonta africana), and asian elephant (elephas maximus). from these sequence data, phylogenetic relationships among three genera were examined. molecular phylogenetic trees reconstructed by the neighbor-joining and the maximum parsimony methods provided an identical topology both for cytochr ... | 1998 | 9493356 |
| evolution of endogenous retrovirus-like elements of the woolly mammoth (mammuthus primigenius) and its relatives. | endogenous retrovirus-like elements characterizable by a leucine trna primer (erv-ls) are reiterated genomic sequences known to be widespread in mammals, including humans. they may have arisen from an ancestral foamy virus-like element by successful germ line infection followed by copy number expansion. however, among mammals, only primates and rodents have thus far exhibited high copy number amplification and sequence diversification. conventionally, empirical studies of proviral amplification ... | 2001 | 11319267 |
| mitochondrial cytochrome b of the lyakhov mammoth (proboscidea, mammalia): new data and phylogenetic analyses of elephantidae. | the phylogenetic relationships between recent elephantidae (proboscidea, mammalia), that is to say extant elephants (asian and african) and extinct woolly mammoth, have remained unclear to date. the prevailing morphological scheme (mammoth grouped with asian elephant) is either supported or questioned by the molecular results. recently, the monophyly of woolly mammoths on mitochondrial grounds has been demonstrated (thomas, et al., 2000), but it conflicts with previous studies (barriel et al., 1 ... | 2003 | 12644401 |
| pleistocene to holocene extinction dynamics in giant deer and woolly mammoth. | the extinction of the many well-known large mammals (megafauna) of the late pleistocene epoch has usually been attributed to 'overkill' by human hunters, climatic/vegetational changes or to a combination of both. an accurate knowledge of the geography and chronology of these extinctions is crucial for testing these hypotheses. previous assumptions that the megafauna of northern eurasia had disappeared by the pleistocene/holocene transition were first challenged a decade ago by the discovery that ... | 2004 | 15470427 |
| a universal primer set for pcr amplification of nuclear histone h4 genes from all animal species. | to control the quality of genomic dna of samples from a wide variety of animals, a heminested pcr assay specifically targeting a nuclear gene has been developed. the histone h4 gene family comprises a small number of genes considered among the most conserved genes in living organisms. tissue samples from necropsies and from cells belonging to 43 different species were studied, eight samples from invertebrates and 35 samples from vertebrates covering all classes. ancient dna samples from three si ... | 2004 | 15601889 |
| isotopic evidence for diet and subsistence pattern of the saint-césaire i neanderthal: review and use of a multi-source mixing model. | the carbon and nitrogen isotopic abundances of the collagen extracted from the saint-césaire i neanderthal have been used to infer the dietary behaviour of this specimen. a review of previously published neanderthal collagen isotopic signatures with the addition of 3 new collagen isotopic signatures from specimens from les pradelles allows us to compare the dietary habits of 5 neanderthal specimens from ois 3 and one specimen from ois 5c. this comparison points to a trophic position as top preda ... | 2005 | 15869783 |
| metagenomics to paleogenomics: large-scale sequencing of mammoth dna. | we sequenced 28 million base pairs of dna in a metagenomics approach, using a woolly mammoth (mammuthus primigenius) sample from siberia. as a result of exceptional sample preservation and the use of a recently developed emulsion polymerase chain reaction and pyrosequencing technique, 13 million base pairs (45.4%) of the sequencing reads were identified as mammoth dna. sequence identity between our data and african elephant (loxodonta africana) was 98.55%, consistent with a paleontologically bas ... | 2006 | 16368896 |
| complete mitochondrial genome and phylogeny of pleistocene mammoth mammuthus primigenius. | phylogenetic relationships between the extinct woolly mammoth (mammuthus primigenius), and the asian (elephas maximus) and african savanna (loxodonta africana) elephants remain unresolved. here, we report the sequence of the complete mitochondrial genome (16,842 base pairs) of a woolly mammoth extracted from permafrost-preserved remains from the pleistocene epoch--the oldest mitochondrial genome sequence determined to date. we demonstrate that well-preserved mitochondrial genome fragments, as lo ... | 2006 | 16448217 |
| [biological evolution and ancient dna]. | twenty years after the advent of ancient dna studies, this discipline seems to have reached the maturity formerly lacking to the fulfilment of its objectives. in its early development paleogenetics, as it is now acknowledged, had to cope with very limited data due to the technical limitations of molecular biology. it led to phylogenetic assumptions often limited in their scope and sometimes non-focused or even spurious results that cast the reluctance of the scientific community. this time seems ... | 2006 | 16687118 |
| new carbon dates link climatic change with human colonization and pleistocene extinctions. | drastic ecological restructuring, species redistribution and extinctions mark the pleistocene-holocene transition, but an insufficiency of numbers of well-dated large mammal fossils from this transition have impeded progress in understanding the various causative links. here i add many new radiocarbon dates to those already published on late pleistocene fossils from alaska and the yukon territory (ak-yt) and show previously unrecognized patterns. species that survived the pleistocene, for exampl ... | 2006 | 16688174 |
| genetic structure and extinction of the woolly mammoth, mammuthus primigenius. | the interval since circa 50 ka has been a period of significant species extinctions among the large mammal fauna. however, the relative roles of an increasing human presence and a synchronous series of complex environmental changes in these extinctions have yet to be fully resolved. recent analyses of fossil material from beringia have clarified our understanding of the spatiotemporal pattern of late pleistocene extinctions, identifying periods of population turnover well before the last glacial ... | 2007 | 17555965 |
| the mastodon mitochondrial genome: a mammoth accomplishment. | the mitochondrial genome of an american mastodon was recently sequenced and used to root a phylogenetic analysis that included full mitochondrial genome sequences from woolly mammoths and the two living elephant genera. the study definitively established that mammoth and asian elephant mitochondrial dna lineages are more closely related than either is to african elephants. however, it also suggests that a complex evolutionary picture could ultimately emerge and points to similarities between the ... | 2008 | 18192067 |
| human influence on distribution and extinctions of the late pleistocene eurasian megafauna. | late pleistocene extinctions are of interest to paleontological and anthropological research. in north america and australia, human occupation occurred during a short period of time and overexploitation may have led to the extinction of mammalian megafauna. in northern eurasia megafaunal extinctions are believed to have occurred over a relatively longer period of time, perhaps as a result of changing environmental conditions, but the picture is much less clear. to consider megafaunal extinction ... | 2008 | 18199470 |
| climate change, humans, and the extinction of the woolly mammoth. | woolly mammoths inhabited eurasia and north america from late middle pleistocene (300 ky bp [300,000 years before present]), surviving through different climatic cycles until they vanished in the holocene (3.6 ky bp). the debate about why the late quaternary extinctions occurred has centred upon environmental and human-induced effects, or a combination of both. however, testing these two hypotheses-climatic and anthropogenic-has been hampered by the difficulty of generating quantitative estimate ... | 2008 | 18384234 |
| deciphering the complete mitochondrial genome and phylogeny of the extinct cave bear in the paleolithic painted cave of chauvet. | retrieving a large amount of genetic information from extinct species was demonstrated feasible, but complete mitochondrial genome sequences have only been deciphered for the moa, a bird that became extinct a few hundred years ago, and for pleistocene species, such as the woolly mammoth and the mastodon, both of which could be studied from animals embedded in permafrost. to enlarge the diversity of mitochondrial genomes available for pleistocene species, we turned to the cave bear (ursus spelaeu ... | 2008 | 18955696 |
| production of healthy cloned mice from bodies frozen at -20 degrees c for 16 years. | cloning animals by nuclear transfer provides an opportunity to preserve endangered mammalian species. however, it has been suggested that the "resurrection" of frozen extinct species (such as the woolly mammoth) is impracticable, as no live cells are available, and the genomic material that remains is inevitably degraded. here we report production of cloned mice from bodies kept frozen at -20 degrees c for up to 16 years without any cryoprotection. as all of the cells were ruptured after thawing ... | 2008 | 18981419 |
| sequencing the nuclear genome of the extinct woolly mammoth. | in 1994, two independent groups extracted dna from several pleistocene epoch mammoths and noted differences among individual specimens. subsequently, dna sequences have been published for a number of extinct species. however, such ancient dna is often fragmented and damaged, and studies to date have typically focused on short mitochondrial sequences, never yielding more than a fraction of a per cent of any nuclear genome. here we describe 4.17 billion bases (gb) of sequence from several mammoth ... | 2008 | 19020620 |
| genetic variation at hair length candidate genes in elephants and the extinct woolly mammoth. | like humans, the living elephants are unusual among mammals in being sparsely covered with hair. relative to extant elephants, the extinct woolly mammoth, mammuthus primigenius, had a dense hair cover and extremely long hair, which likely were adaptations to its subarctic habitat. the fibroblast growth factor 5 (fgf5) gene affects hair length in a diverse set of mammalian species. mutations in fgf5 lead to recessive long hair phenotypes in mice, dogs, and cats; and the gene has been implicated i ... | 2009 | 19747392 |
| ancient dna reveals late survival of mammoth and horse in interior alaska. | causes of late quaternary extinctions of large mammals ("megafauna") continue to be debated, especially for continental losses, because spatial and temporal patterns of extinction are poorly known. accurate latest appearance dates (lads) for such taxa are critical for interpreting the process of extinction. the extinction of woolly mammoth and horse in northwestern north america is currently placed at 15,000-13,000 calendar years before present (yr bp), based on lads from dating surveys of macro ... | 2009 | 20018740 |
| temporal genetic change in the last remaining population of woolly mammoth. | during the late pleistocene, the woolly mammoth (mammuthus primigenius) experienced a series of local extinctions generally attributed to human predation or environmental change. some small and isolated populations did however survive far into the holocene. here, we investigated the genetic consequences of the isolation of the last remaining mammoth population on wrangel island. we analysed 741 bp of the mitochondrial dna and found a loss of genetic variation in relation to the isolation event, ... | 2010 | 20356891 |
| the intestinal contents of a baby woolly mammoth (mammuthus primigenius blumenbach, 1799) from the yuribey river (yamal peninsula). | | 2010 | 20665156 |
| genomic dna sequences from mastodon and woolly mammoth reveal deep speciation of forest and savanna elephants. | to elucidate the history of living and extinct elephantids, we generated 39,763 bp of aligned nuclear dna sequence across 375 loci for african savanna elephant, african forest elephant, asian elephant, the extinct american mastodon, and the woolly mammoth. our data establish that the asian elephant is the closest living relative of the extinct mammoth in the nuclear genome, extending previous findings from mitochondrial dna analyses. we also find that savanna and forest elephants, which some hav ... | 2010 | 21203580 |
| a biochemical-biophysical study of hemoglobins from woolly mammoth, asian elephant, and humans. | this study is aimed at investigating the molecular basis of environmental adaptation of woolly mammoth hemoglobin (hb) to the harsh thermal conditions of the pleistocene ice ages. to this end, we have carried out a comparative biochemical-biophysical characterization of the structural and functional properties of recombinant hemoglobins (rhb) from woolly mammoth (rhb wm) and asian elephant (rhb ae) in relation to human hemoglobins hb a and hb a(2) (a minor component of human blood). we have obta ... | 2011 | 21806075 |
| proteomic analysis of a pleistocene mammoth femur reveals more than one hundred ancient bone proteins. | we used high-sensitivity, high-resolution tandem mass spectrometry to shotgun sequence ancient protein remains extracted from a 43 000 year old woolly mammoth ( mammuthus primigenius ) bone preserved in the siberian permafrost. for the first time, 126 unique protein accessions, mostly low-abundance extracellular matrix and plasma proteins, were confidently identified by solid molecular evidence. among the best characterized was the carrier protein serum albumin, presenting two single amino acid ... | 2011 | 22103443 |
| Species-specific responses of Late Quaternary megafauna to climate and humans. | Despite decades of research, the roles of climate and humans in driving the dramatic extinctions of large-bodied mammals during the Late Quaternary period remain contentious. Here we use ancient DNA, species distribution models and the human fossil record to elucidate how climate and humans shaped the demographic history of woolly rhinoceros, woolly mammoth, wild horse, reindeer, bison and musk ox. We show that climate has been a major driver of population change over the past 50,000 years. Howe ... | 2011 | 22048313 |
| was frozen mammoth or giant ground sloth served for dinner at the explorers club? | accounts of woolly mammoths (mammuthus primigenius) preserved so well in ice that their meat is still edible have a long history of intriguing the public and influencing paleontological thought on quaternary extinctions and climate, with some scientists resorting to catastrophism to explain the instantaneous freezing necessary to preserve edible meat. famously, members of the explorers club purportedly dined on frozen mammoth from alaska, usa, in 1951. this event, well received by the press and ... | 2016 | 26840445 |
| bacterial natural transformation by highly fragmented and damaged dna. | dna molecules are continuously released through decomposition of organic matter and are ubiquitous in most environments. such dna becomes fragmented and damaged (often <100 bp) and may persist in the environment for more than half a million years. fragmented dna is recognized as nutrient source for microbes, but not as potential substrate for bacterial evolution. here, we show that fragmented dna molecules (≥ 20 bp) that additionally may contain abasic sites, cross-links, or miscoding lesions ar ... | 2013 | 24248361 |
| an advanced shape-fitting algorithm applied to quadrupedal mammals: improving volumetric mass estimates. | body mass is a fundamental physical property of an individual and has enormous bearing upon ecology and physiology. generating reliable estimates for body mass is therefore a necessary step in many palaeontological studies. whilst early reconstructions of mass in extinct species relied upon isolated skeletal elements, volumetric techniques are increasingly applied to fossils when skeletal completeness allows. we apply a new 'alpha shapes' (α-shapes) algorithm to volumetric mass estimation in qua ... | 2015 | 26361559 |
| draft genome sequence of enterococcus faecium strain 58m, isolated from intestinal tract content of a woolly mammoth, mammuthus primigenius. | enterococcus faecium 58m is a putative ancient nonpathogenic strain isolated from the intestinal content of an adult woolly mammoth (mammuthus primigenius). here, we report its draft genome sequence, consisting of 60 contigs. in silico genomic analysis was performed to determine the genetic features and pathogenic potential of this microorganism. | 2016 | 26868396 |
| structures of haemoglobin from woolly mammoth in liganded and unliganded states. | the haemoglobin (hb) of the extinct woolly mammoth has been recreated using recombinant genes expressed in escherichia coli. the globin gene sequences were previously determined using dna recovered from frozen cadavers. although highly similar to the hb of existing elephants, the woolly mammoth protein shows rather different responses to chloride ions and temperature. in particular, the heat of oxygenation is found to be much lower in mammoth hb, which appears to be an adaptation to the harsh hi ... | 2012 | 23090393 |
| preliminary analyses of the frozen mummies of mammoth (mammuthus primigenius), bison (bison priscus) and horse (equus sp.) from the yana-indigirka lowland, yakutia, russia. | the frozen bodies of a young woolly mammoth (mammuthus primigenius), a wild horse (equus sp.) and a steppe bison (bison priscus) were recently found in the northern yakutia (northeastern siberia). all specimens have preserved bones, skin and soft tissues. whereas the woolly mammoth and the pleistocene horse were represented by partial frozen bodies, the steppe bison body was recovered in an absolutely complete state. all specimens were found frozen in the permafrost, with some of the tissues mum ... | 2014 | 24148659 |
| differential effects of temperature change and human impact on european late quaternary mammalian extinctions. | species that inhabited europe during the late quaternary were impacted by temperature changes and early humans, resulting in the disappearance of half of the european large mammals. however, quantifying the relative importance that each factor had in the extinction risk of species has been challenging, mostly due to the spatio-temporal biases of fossil records, which complicate the calibration of realistic and accurate ecological niche modeling. here, we overcome this problem by using ecotypes, ... | 2015 | 25311114 |
| elephant natural history: a genomic perspective. | we review dna-based studies of elephants and recently extinct proboscideans. the evidence indicates that little or no nuclear gene flow occurs between african savanna elephants (loxodonta africana) and african forest elephants (loxodonta cyclotis), establishing that they comprise separate species. in all elephant species, males disperse, whereas females remain with their natal social group, leading to discordance in the phylogeography of nuclear and mitochondrial dna patterns. improvements in an ... | 2015 | 25493538 |
| role of β/δ101gln in regulating the effect of temperature and allosteric effectors on oxygen affinity in woolly mammoth hemoglobin. | the oxygen affinity of woolly mammoth hemoglobin (rhb wm) is less affected by temperature change than that of asian elephant hemoglobin (rhb ae) or human normal adult hemoglobin (hb a). we report here a biochemical-biophysical study of hb a, rhb ae, rhb wm, and three rhb wm mutants with amino acid substitutions at β/δ101 (β/δ101gln→glu, lys, or asp) plus a double and a triple mutant, designed to clarify the role of the β/δ101 residue. the β/δ101gln residue is important for responding to alloster ... | 2013 | 24228693 |
| forest elephant mitochondrial genomes reveal that elephantid diversification in africa tracked climate transitions. | among elephants, the phylogeographic patterns of mitochondrial (mt) and nuclear markers are often incongruent. one hypothesis attributes this to sex differences in dispersal and in the variance of reproductive success. we tested this hypothesis by examining the coalescent dates of genetic markers within elephantid lineages, predicting that lower dispersal and lower variance in reproductive success among females would have increased mtdna relative to nuclear coalescent dates. we sequenced the mit ... | 2012 | 22260276 |
| real-time pcr detection and quantification of elephantid dna: species identification for highly processed samples associated with the ivory trade. | the ivory industry is the single most serious threat to global elephant populations. a highly sensitive, species-specific real-time pcr assay has been developed to detect and quantify african elephant (loxodonta africana), asian elephant (elephas maximus) and woolly mammoth (mammuthus primigenius) mitochondrial dna from highly processed samples involved in the international ivory trade. this assay is especially useful for highly processed samples where there are no distinguishing morphological f ... | 2012 | 22257967 |
| a neanderthal lower molar from stajnia cave, poland. | the primary aim of this study was to conduct a taxonomic assessment of the second of three isolated human teeth found in the stajnia cave (north of the carpathians, poland) in 2008. the specimen was located near a human tooth (s5000), which was identified by urbanowski et al. (2010) as a neanderthal permanent upper molar. both of these teeth were excavated from the d2 layer, which belongs to the d stratigraphic complex comprising the archaeological assemblage associated with the micoquian tradit ... | 2013 | 23415376 |
| tracking the origins of yakutian horses and the genetic basis for their fast adaptation to subarctic environments. | yakutia, sakha republic, in the siberian far east, represents one of the coldest places on earth, with winter record temperatures dropping below -70 °c. nevertheless, yakutian horses survive all year round in the open air due to striking phenotypic adaptations, including compact body conformations, extremely hairy winter coats, and acute seasonal differences in metabolic activities. the evolutionary origins of yakutian horses and the genetic basis of their adaptations remain, however, contentiou ... | 2015 | 26598656 |
| pros and cons of methylation-based enrichment methods for ancient dna. | the recent discovery that dna methylation survives in fossil material provides an opportunity for novel molecular approaches in palaeogenomics. here, we apply to ancient dna extracts the probe-independent methylated binding domains (mbd)-based enrichment method, which targets dna molecules containing methylated cpgs. using remains of a palaeo-eskimo saqqaq individual, woolly mammoths, polar bears and two equine species, we confirm that dna methylation survives in a variety of tissues, environmen ... | 2015 | 26134828 |
| multiplex amplification of the mammoth mitochondrial genome and the evolution of elephantidae. | in studying the genomes of extinct species, two principal limitations are typically the small quantities of endogenous ancient dna and its degraded condition, even though products of up to 1,600 base pairs (bp) have been amplified in rare cases. using small overlapping polymerase chain reaction products, longer stretches of sequences or even whole mitochondrial genomes can be reconstructed, but this approach is limited by the number of amplifications that can be performed from rare samples. thus ... | 2006 | 16362058 |
| nuclear dna sequences from late pleistocene megafauna. | we report the retrieval and characterization of multi- and single-copy nuclear dna sequences from alaskan and siberian mammoths (mammuthus primigenius). in addition, a nuclear copy of a mitochondrial gene was recovered. furthermore, a 13,000-year-old ground sloth and a 33,000-year-old cave bear yielded multicopy nuclear dna sequences. thus, multicopy and single-copy genes can be analyzed from pleistocene faunal remains. the results also show that under some circumstances, nucleotide sequence dif ... | 1999 | 10555277 |
| evolution of the mc5r gene in placental mammals with evidence for its inactivation in multiple lineages that lack sebaceous glands. | mc5r is one of five melanocortin receptor genes found in placental mammals. mc5r plays an important role in energy homeostasis and is also expressed in the terminal differentiation of sebaceous glands. among placental mammals there are multiple lineages that either lack or have degenerative sebaceous glands including cetacea (whales, dolphins, and porpoises), hippopotamidae (hippopotamuses), sirenia (manatees and dugongs), proboscidea (elephants), rhinocerotidae (rhinos), and heterocephalus glab ... | 2017 | 29277542 |
| imperial trophy or island relict? a new extinction paradigm for père david's deer: a chinese conservation icon. | determining the 'dynamic biogeography' of range collapse in threatened species is essential for effective conservation, but reconstruction of spatio-temporal patterns of population vulnerability and resilience can require use of non-standard ecological data such as historical archives. père david's deer or milu, one of the few living mammal species that has become extinct in the wild, is historically known only from a small captive herd of unknown provenance that survived until 1900 in the imper ... | 2017 | 29134102 |
| impact-related microspherules in late pleistocene alaskan and yukon "muck" deposits signify recurrent episodes of catastrophic emplacement. | large quantities of impact-related microspherules have been found in fine-grained sediments retained within seven out of nine, radiocarbon-dated, late pleistocene mammoth (mammuthus primigenius) and bison (bison priscus) skull fragments. the well-preserved fossils were recovered from frozen "muck" deposits (organic-rich silt) exposed within the fairbanks and klondike mining districts of alaska, usa, and the yukon territory, canada. in addition, elevated platinum abundances were found in sediment ... | 2017 | 29192242 |
| high incidence of cervical ribs indicates vulnerable condition in late pleistocene woolly rhinoceroses. | mammals as a rule have seven cervical vertebrae, a number that remains remarkably constant. changes of this number are associated with major congenital abnormalities (pleiotropic effects) that are, at least in humans, strongly selected against. recently, it was found that late pleistocene mammoths (mammuthus primigenius) from the north sea have an unusually high incidence of abnormal cervical vertebral numbers, approximately ten times higher than that of extant elephants. abnormal numbers were d ... | 2017 | 28875067 |
| the flickering genes of the last mammoths. | woolly mammoths, mammuthus primigenius, are arguably the most iconic of the extinct pleistocene megafauna, and an abundance of large permafrost-embedded bone and ivory material (fig. 1) means they were also among the first to yield credible dna sequences (hagelberg et al. 1994; hoss et al. 1994). despite mammoth remains being numerous throughout northern eurasia and north america, both the earliest and most recent fossils are found in northeast siberia, with the last known population being confi ... | 2012 | 22953331 |
| pattern of extinction of the woolly mammoth in beringia. | extinction of the woolly mammoth in beringia has long been subject to research and speculation. here we use a new geo-referenced database of radiocarbon-dated evidence to show that mammoths were abundant in the open-habitat of marine isotope stage 3 (∼45-30 ka). during the last glacial maximum (∼25-20 ka), northern populations declined while those in interior siberia increased. northern mammoths increased after the glacial maximum, but declined at and after the younger dryas (∼12.9-11.5 ka). rem ... | 2012 | 22692536 |
| a phantom extinction? new insights into extinction dynamics of the don-hare lepus tanaiticus. | the pleistocene to holocene transition was accompanied by a worldwide extinction event affecting numerous mammalian species. several species such as the woolly mammoth and the giant deer survived this extinction wave, only to go extinct a few thousand years later during the holocene. another example for such a holocene extinction is the don-hare, lepus tanaiticus, which inhabited the russian plains during the late glacial. after being slowly replaced by the extant mountain hare (lepus timidus), ... | 2010 | 20695962 |
| identification of hairs of the wooly mammoth mammuthus primigenius and wooly rhinoceros coelodonta antiquitatis using scanning electron microscopy. | | 2015 | 26335971 |
| elephantid genomes reveal the molecular bases of woolly mammoth adaptations to the arctic. | woolly mammoths and living elephants are characterized by major phenotypic differences that have allowed them to live in very different environments. to identify the genetic changes that underlie the suite of woolly mammoth adaptations to extreme cold, we sequenced the nuclear genome from three asian elephants and two woolly mammoths, and we identified and functionally annotated genetic changes unique to woolly mammoths. we found that genes with mammoth-specific amino acid changes are enriched i ... | 2015 | 26146078 |
| does the 43 bp sequence from an 800,000 year old cretan dwarf elephantid really rewrite the textbook on mammoths? | pigmy elephants inhabited the islands from the mediterranean region during the pleistocene period but became extinct in the course of the holocene. despite striking distinctive anatomical characteristics related to insularity, some similarities with the lineage of extant asian elephants have suggested that pigmy elephants could be most probably seen as members of the genus elephas. poulakakis et al (2006) have recently challenged this view by recovering a short mtdna sequence from an 800 000 yea ... | 2007 | 17443966 |
| mammoth and elephant phylogenetic relationships: mammut americanum, the missing outgroup. | at the morphological level, the woolly mammoth has most often been considered as the sister-species of asian elephants, but at the dna level, different studies have found support for proximity with african elephants. recent reports have increased the available sequence data and apparently solved the discrepancy, finding mammoths to be most closely related to asian elephants. however, we demonstrate here that the three competing topologies have similar likelihood, bayesian and parsimony supports. ... | 2007 | 19430604 |
| the mummified brain of a pleistocene woolly mammoth (mammuthus primigenius) compared with the brain of the extant african elephant (loxodonta africana). | this study presents the results of an examination of the mummified brain of a pleistocene woolly mammoth (mammuthus primigenius) recovered from the yakutian permafrost in siberia, russia. this unique specimen (from 39,440-38,850 years bp) provides the rare opportunity to compare the brain morphology of this extinct species with a related extant species, the african elephant (loxodonta africana). an anatomical description of the preserved brain of the woolly mammoth is provided, along with a seri ... | 2015 | 26011110 |
| a comprehensive genomic history of extinct and living elephants. | elephantids are the world's most iconic megafaunal family, yet there is no comprehensive genomic assessment of their relationships. we report a total of 14 genomes, including 2 from the american mastodon, which is an extinct elephantid relative, and 12 spanning all three extant and three extinct elephantid species including an ∼120,000-y-old straight-tusked elephant, a columbian mammoth, and woolly mammoths. earlier genetic studies modeled elephantid evolution via simple bifurcating trees, but h ... | 2018 | 29483247 |
| molecular phylogeny of elephantidae. extreme divergence of the extant forest african elephant. | a phylogenetic study of the elephantidae (proboscidea, mammalia) is based on the cytochrome b mitochondrial gene: 31 terminals, that is, all known sequences, one non-elephantid proboscidean, the extinct american mastodon, and four outgroups. the data set includes 11 new sequences with the first published sequence of the forest african elephant, l. a. cyclotis. the analyses of extant taxa only and of both extant and extinct taxa show that l. a. cyclotis is highly divergent from l. a. africana. it ... | 1999 | 10457597 |
| evolution and dispersal of mammoths across the northern hemisphere. | mammoths provide a detailed example of species origins and dispersal, but understanding has been impeded by taxonomic confusion, especially in north america. the columbian mammoth mammuthus columbi was thought to have evolved in north america from a more primitive eurasian immigrant. the earliest american mammoths (1.5 million years ago), however, resemble the advanced eurasian m. trogontherii that crossed the bering land bridge around that time, giving rise directly to m. columbi. woolly mammot ... | 2015 | 26564853 |
| complete columbian mammoth mitogenome suggests interbreeding with woolly mammoths. | late pleistocene north america hosted at least two divergent and ecologically distinct species of mammoth: the periglacial woolly mammoth (mammuthus primigenius) and the subglacial columbian mammoth (mammuthus columbi). to date, mammoth genetic research has been entirely restricted to woolly mammoths, rendering their genetic evolution difficult to contextualize within broader pleistocene paleoecology and biogeography. here, we take an interspecific approach to clarifying mammoth phylogeny by tar ... | 2011 | 21627792 |
| central european woolly mammoth population dynamics: insights from late pleistocene mitochondrial genomes. | the population dynamics of the pleistocene woolly mammoth (mammuthus primigenius) has been the subject of intensive palaeogenetic research. although a large number of mitochondrial genomes across eurasia have been reconstructed, the available data remains geographically sparse and mostly focused on eastern eurasia. thus, population dynamics in other regions have not been extensively investigated. here, we use a multi-method approach utilising proteomic, stable isotope and genetic techniques to i ... | 2017 | 29255197 |
| genome-based sexing provides clues about behavior and social structure in the woolly mammoth. | while present-day taxa are valuable proxies for understanding the biology of extinct species, it is also crucial to examine physical remains in order to obtain a more comprehensive view of their behavior, social structure, and life histories [1, 2]. for example, information on demographic parameters such as age distribution and sex ratios in fossil assemblages can be used to accurately infer socioecological patterns (e.g., [3]). here we use genomic data to determine the sex of 98 woolly mammoth ... | 2017 | 29103934 |
| inactivation of thermogenic ucp1 as a historical contingency in multiple placental mammal clades. | mitochondrial uncoupling protein 1 (ucp1) is essential for nonshivering thermogenesis in brown adipose tissue and is widely accepted to have played a key thermoregulatory role in small-bodied and neonatal placental mammals that enabled the exploitation of cold environments. we mapucp1sequences from 133 mammals onto a species tree constructed from a ~51-kb sequence alignment and show that inactivating mutations have occurred in at least 8 of the 18 traditional placental orders, thereby challengin ... | 2017 | 28706989 |
| evolutionary adaptation revealed by comparative genome analysis of woolly mammoths and elephants. | comparative genomics studies typically limit their focus to single nucleotide variants (snvs) and that was the case for previous comparisons of woolly mammoth genomes. we extended the analysis to systematically identify not only snvs but also larger structural variants (svs) and indels and found multiple mammoth-specific deletions and duplications affecting exons or even complete genes. the most prominent sv found was an amplification of rnase l (with different copy numbers in different mammoth ... | 2017 | 28369217 |
| the evolutionary and phylogeographic history of woolly mammoths: a comprehensive mitogenomic analysis. | near the end of the pleistocene epoch, populations of the woolly mammoth (mammuthus primigenius) were distributed across parts of three continents, from western europe and northern asia through beringia to the atlantic seaboard of north america. nonetheless, questions about the connectivity and temporal continuity of mammoth populations and species remain unanswered. we use a combination of targeted enrichment and high-throughput sequencing to assemble and interpret a data set of 143 mammoth mit ... | 2017 | 28327635 |
| excess of genomic defects in a woolly mammoth on wrangel island. | woolly mammoths (mammuthus primigenius) populated siberia, beringia, and north america during the pleistocene and early holocene. recent breakthroughs in ancient dna sequencing have allowed for complete genome sequencing for two specimens of woolly mammoths (palkopoulou et al. 2015). one mammoth specimen is from a mainland population 45,000 years ago when mammoths were plentiful. the second, a 4300 yr old specimen, is derived from an isolated population on wrangel island where mammoths subsisted ... | 2017 | 28253255 |
| timing and causes of mid-holocene mammoth extinction on st. paul island, alaska. | relict woolly mammoth (mammuthus primigenius) populations survived on several small beringian islands for thousands of years after mainland populations went extinct. here we present multiproxy paleoenvironmental records to investigate the timing, causes, and consequences of mammoth disappearance from st. paul island, alaska. five independent indicators of extinction show that mammoths survived on st. paul until 5,600 ± 100 y ago. vegetation composition remained stable during the extinction windo ... | 2016 | 27482085 |
| changes in variation at the mhc class ii dqa locus during the final demise of the woolly mammoth. | according to the nearly-neutral theory of evolution, the relative strengths of selection and drift shift in favour of drift at small population sizes. numerous studies have analysed the effect of bottlenecks and small population sizes on genetic diversity in the mhc, which plays a central role in pathogen recognition and immune defense and is thus considered a model example for the study of adaptive evolution. however, to understand changes in genetic diversity at loci under selection, it is nec ... | 2016 | 27143688 |
| evolution: the island of misfit mammoths. | the genomes of two woolly mammoths have been sequenced. one of the last survivors had reduced genetic diversity. although divergent in their mitochondrial genomes, the mammoths had similar nuclear genomes, a finding germane to elephant conservation. | 2015 | 26126277 |
| solving the woolly mammoth conundrum: amino acid ¹⁵n-enrichment suggests a distinct forage or habitat. | understanding woolly mammoth ecology is key to understanding pleistocene community dynamics and evaluating the roles of human hunting and climate change in late quaternary megafaunal extinctions. previous isotopic studies of mammoths' diet and physiology have been hampered by the 'mammoth conundrum': woolly mammoths have anomalously high collagen δ(15)n values, which are more similar to coeval carnivores than herbivores, and which could imply a distinct diet and (or) habitat, or a physiological ... | 2015 | 26056037 |
| histology of a woolly mammoth (mammuthus primigenius) preserved in permafrost, yamal peninsula, northwest siberia. | in 2007, the baby woolly mammoth (mammuthus primigenius) named lyuba was found frozen in the siberian tundra permafrost along the yuribey river. she was proclaimed the best-preserved mammoth discovery. as part of the endoscopic examination of lyuba, tissue samples of hair, muscle, and internal organs were taken. the sectioned biopsies were stained using standard and special histological stains. in general, the microscopic preservation of the tissue was good although no clearly identifiable cell ... | 2015 | 25998640 |
| complete genomes reveal signatures of demographic and genetic declines in the woolly mammoth. | the processes leading up to species extinctions are typically characterized by prolonged declines in population size and geographic distribution, followed by a phase in which populations are very small and may be subject to intrinsic threats, including loss of genetic diversity and inbreeding. however, whether such genetic factors have had an impact on species prior to their extinction is unclear; examining this would require a detailed reconstruction of a species' demographic history as well as ... | 2015 | 25913407 |
| ancient and modern environmental dna. | dna obtained from environmental samples such as sediments, ice or water (environmental dna, edna), represents an important source of information on past and present biodiversity. it has revealed an ancient forest in greenland, extended by several thousand years the survival dates for mainland woolly mammoth in alaska, and pushed back the dates for spruce survival in scandinavian ice-free refugia during the last glaciation. more recently, edna was used to uncover the past 50 000 years of vegetati ... | 2015 | 25487334 |
| cloning the mammoth: a complicated task or just a dream? | recently there has been growing interest in applying the most advanced embryological tools, particularly cloning, to bring extinct species back to life, with a particular focus on the woolly mammoth (mammuthus primigenius). mammoth's bodies found in the permafrost are relatively well preserved, with identifiable nuclei in their tissues. the purpose of this chapter is to review the literature published on the topic, and to present the strategies potentially suitable for a mammoth cloning project, ... | 2014 | 25091921 |
| assessing the maximum contribution from ancient populations. | ancestral relationships between populations separated by time represent an often neglected dimension in population genetics, a field which historically has focused on analysis of spatially distributed samples from the same point in time. models are usually straightforward when two time-separated populations are assumed to be completely isolated from all other populations. however, this is usually an unrealistically stringent assumption when there is gene flow with other populations. here, we inv ... | 2014 | 24497031 |
| holarctic genetic structure and range dynamics in the woolly mammoth. | ancient dna analyses have provided enhanced resolution of population histories in many pleistocene taxa. however, most studies are spatially restricted, making inference of species-level biogeographic histories difficult. here, we analyse mitochondrial dna (mtdna) variation in the woolly mammoth from across its holarctic range to reconstruct its history over the last 200 thousand years (kyr). we identify a previously undocumented major mtdna lineage in europe, which was replaced by another major ... | 2013 | 24026825 |
| resurrecting ancient animal genomes: the extinct moa and more. | recently two developments have had a major impact on the field of ancient dna (adna). first, new advances in dna sequencing, in combination with improved capture/enrichment methods, have resulted in the recovery of orders of magnitude more dna sequence data from ancient animals. second, there has been an increase in the range of tissue types employed in adna. hair in particular has proven to be very successful as a source of dna because of its low levels of contamination and high level of ancien ... | 2012 | 22674514 |
| a comparative study of ancient sedimentary dna, pollen and macrofossils from permafrost sediments of northern siberia reveals long-term vegetational stability. | although ancient dna from sediments (sedadna) has been used to investigate past ecosystems, the approach has never been directly compared with the traditional methods of pollen and macrofossil analysis. we conducted a comparative survey of 18 ancient permafrost samples spanning the late pleistocene (46-12.5 thousand years ago), from the taymyr peninsula in northern siberia. the results show that pollen, macrofossils and sedadna are complementary rather than overlapping and, in combination, revea ... | 2012 | 22590727 |
| microsatellite genotyping reveals end-pleistocene decline in mammoth autosomal genetic variation. | the last glaciation was a dynamic period with strong impact on the demography of many species and populations. in recent years, mitochondrial dna sequences retrieved from radiocarbon-dated remains have provided novel insights into the history of late pleistocene populations. however, genotyping of loci from the nuclear genome may provide enhanced resolution of population-level changes. here, we use four autosomal microsatellite dna markers to investigate the demographic history of woolly mammoth ... | 2012 | 22443459 |
| successful genotyping of microsatellites in the woolly mammoth. | genetic analyses using ancient dna from pleistocene and early holocene fossils have largely relied on mitochondrial dna (mtdna) sequences. among woolly mammoths, mammuthus primigenius, mtdna analyses have identified 2 distinct clades (i and ii) that diverged 1-2 ma. here, we establish that microsatellite markers can be effective on pleistocene samples, successfully genotyping woolly mammoth specimens at 2 loci. although significant differentiation at the 2 microsatellite loci was not detected be ... | 2012 | 22235141 |
| out of tibet: pliocene woolly rhino suggests high-plateau origin of ice age megaherbivores. | ice age megafauna have long been known to be associated with global cooling during the pleistocene, and their adaptations to cold environments, such as large body size, long hair, and snow-sweeping structures, are best exemplified by the woolly mammoths and woolly rhinos. these traits were assumed to have evolved as a response to the ice sheet expansion. we report a new pliocene mammal assemblage from a high-altitude basin in the western himalayas, including a primitive woolly rhino. these new t ... | 2011 | 21885780 |
| temperature dependence of haemoglobin-oxygen affinity in heterothermic vertebrates: mechanisms and biological significance. | as demonstrated by august krogh et al. a century ago, the oxygen-binding reaction of vertebrate haemoglobin is cooperative (described by sigmoid o(2) equilibrium curves) and modulated by co(2) and protons (lowered ph) that - in conjunction with later discovered allosteric effectors (chloride, lactate and organic phosphate anions) - enhance o(2) unloading from blood in relatively acidic and oxygen-poor tissues. based on the exothermic nature of the oxygenation of the haem groups, haemoglobin-o(2) ... | 2011 | 20958923 |
| substitutions in woolly mammoth hemoglobin confer biochemical properties adaptive for cold tolerance. | we have genetically retrieved, resurrected and performed detailed structure-function analyses on authentic woolly mammoth hemoglobin to reveal for the first time both the evolutionary origins and the structural underpinnings of a key adaptive physiochemical trait in an extinct species. hemoglobin binds and carries o(2); however, its ability to offload o(2) to respiring cells is hampered at low temperatures, as heme deoxygenation is inherently endothermic (that is, hemoglobin-o(2) affinity increa ... | 2010 | 20436470 |
| reading between the lines to see into the past. | transposable elements (tes) are an important source of genome diversity and play a crucial role in genome evolution. a recent study by zhao et al. describes novel patterns of te diversification in the genome of the extinct mammoth mammuthus primigenius. analysis of mammuthus has provided a unique genome landscape, a pivotal species for understanding tes and genome evolution and hints at the diversity we verge on discovering by expanding our taxonomic sampling among genomes. strategies based on t ... | 2009 | 19837475 |
| tracking the past: interspersed repeats in an extinct afrotherian mammal, mammuthus primigenius. | the woolly mammoth (mammuthus primigenius) died out about several thousand years ago, yet recent paleogenomic studies have successfully recovered genetic information from both the mitochondrial and nuclear genomes of this extinct species. mammoths belong to afrotheria, a group of mammals exhibiting extreme morphological diversity and large genome sizes. in this study, we found that the mammoth genome contains a larger proportion of interspersed repeats than any other mammalian genome reported so ... | 2009 | 19508981 |
| out of america: ancient dna evidence for a new world origin of late quaternary woolly mammoths. | although the iconic mammoth of the late pleistocene, the woolly mammoth (mammuthus primigenius), has traditionally been regarded as the end point of a single anagenetically evolving lineage, recent paleontological and molecular studies have shown that successive allopatric speciation events must have occurred within pleistocene mammuthus in asia, with subsequent expansion and hybridization between nominal taxa [1, 2]. however, the role of north american mammoth populations in these events has no ... | 2008 | 18771918 |
| intraspecific phylogenetic analysis of siberian woolly mammoths using complete mitochondrial genomes. | we report five new complete mitochondrial dna (mtdna) genomes of siberian woolly mammoth (mammuthus primigenius), sequenced with up to 73-fold coverage from dna extracted from hair shaft material. three of the sequences present the first complete mtdna genomes of mammoth clade ii. analysis of these and 13 recently published mtdna genomes demonstrates the existence of two apparently sympatric mtdna clades that exhibit high interclade divergence. the analytical power afforded by the analysis of th ... | 2008 | 18541911 |
| what killed the woolly mammoth? | | 2008 | 20076709 |
| whole-genome shotgun sequencing of mitochondria from ancient hair shafts. | although the application of sequencing-by-synthesis techniques to dna extracted from bones has revolutionized the study of ancient dna, it has been plagued by large fractions of contaminating environmental dna. the genetic analyses of hair shafts could be a solution: we present 10 previously unexamined siberian mammoth (mammuthus primigenius) mitochondrial genomes, sequenced with up to 48-fold coverage. the observed levels of damage-derived sequencing errors were lower than those observed in pre ... | 2007 | 17901335 |
| recharacterization of ancient dna miscoding lesions: insights in the era of sequencing-by-synthesis. | although ancient dna (adna) miscoding lesions have been studied since the earliest days of the field, their nature remains a source of debate. a variety of conflicting hypotheses exist about which miscoding lesions constitute true adna damage as opposed to pcr polymerase amplification error. furthermore, considerable disagreement and speculation exists on which specific damage events underlie observed miscoding lesions. the root of the problem is that it has previously been difficult to assemble ... | 2007 | 16920744 |
| nuclear gene indicates coat-color polymorphism in mammoths. | by amplifying the melanocortin type 1 receptor from the woolly mammoth, we can report the complete nucleotide sequence of a nuclear-encoded gene from an extinct species. we found two alleles and show that one allele produces a functional protein whereas the other one encodes a protein with strongly reduced activity. this finding suggests that mammoths may have been polymorphic in coat color, with both dark- and light-haired individuals co-occurring. | 2006 | 16825562 |
| a nuclear dna phylogeny of the woolly mammoth (mammuthus primigenius). | | 2006 | 16631387 |
| reading the evolutionary history of the woolly mammoth in its mitochondrial genome. | | 2006 | 20076539 |
| sebaceous glands of the woolly mammoth, mammothus primigenius blum: histological evidence. | | 2017 | 15587793 |
| search for the woolly mammoth: a case study in inquiry-based learning. | | 2003 | 14648499 |
| nuclear gene sequences from a late pleistocene sloth coprolite. | the determination of nuclear dna sequences from ancient remains would open many novel opportunities such as the resolution of phylogenies, the sexing of hominid and animal remains, and the characterization of genes involved in phenotypic traits. however, to date, single-copy nuclear dna sequences from fossils have been determined only from bones and teeth of woolly mammoths preserved in the permafrost. since the best preserved ancient nucleic acids tend to stem from cold environments, this has l ... | 2003 | 12842016 |
| the origin and evolution of the woolly mammoth. | the mammoth lineage provides an example of rapid adaptive evolution in response to the changing environments of the pleistocene. using well-dated samples from across the mammoth's eurasian range, we document geographical and chronological variation in adaptive morphology. this work illustrates an incremental (if mosaic) evolutionary sequence but also reveals a complex interplay of local morphological innovation, migration, and extirpation in the origin and evolution of a mammalian species. in pa ... | 2001 | 11691991 |
| dick mol. 'sir mammoth' leads charge to uncover ice age fossils. | dick mol may be an amateur, but he's had more success than most professionals in his chosen field of paleontology. as scientific coordinator of a major expedition that's gathering the remains of woolly mammoths and other pleistocene fauna from siberia's taimyr peninsula, this 45-year-old customs officer at amsterdam airport has been featured in a documentary on the discovery channel and in a sequel to appear next march. the work has brought him international recognition for his studies on quater ... | 2000 | 11187828 |
| [the systematic position of the holocene population of the mammoth, mammuthus primigenius (blumenbach, 1799), of the vrangel island (northeast siberia)]. | | 1993 | 8268813 |